St Mary’s Hall Cross Country

Sport can have its high’s and its low, it can be filled with triumph or disaster, but one thing remains consistent; hard work pays off. Since September our students have been training hard in both lunch-time and after school running clubs. Students have endured blood, sweat and tears when training, especially when they hill train! However, the grit and determination shown in training transferred directly to the event yesterday!

Junior and Senior students competed in the annual Stonyhurst St Mary’s Hall Cross Country event yesterday. The weather yet again this year was pretty grim with the course already saturated and driving winds and rain to contend with.

Not to be put off by such small matters….our teams donned running footwear, hats and gloves and attacked the course it true Westholme style.

The Year 5 and 6 girls took to the challenging course first and despite a few slips and slides, they all performed amazingly well with Kate Deegan romping home in an excellent 3rd place. The rest of the team did not disappoint and the top 5 runners all finished in the top 30 in a field of over 70 runners.

They then cheered on the boys’ team who flashed past in a cloud of mud and rain. The boys had a tough field of runners and an even tougher race to battle with the now driving rain; however they all acquitted themselves well and had some good finishes.

Our U13 girls did tremendously well with a special mention going to Charlotte Corrigan who finished 1st and Hollie Cubbon who finished in 3rd place. This meant our U13 girls finished 2nd overall – a fantastic achievement.

The U13 boys were the last group on what was now a very muddy course. In typical cross country style, the heavens opened and we had huge down pour of rain and hail at the very start of the race. Undeterred, they got off to a great start and managed to keep it up the entire way round; some even managed a brilliant sprint finish to gain valuable points. The boys were delighted when they found out the team came 3rd out of all of the North West!

Overall Team Results:

U11 (Girls) – 3rd, U11 (Boys) – 12th

U13 (Girls) – 2nd, U13 (Boys) – 3rd

Well done to all our intrepid runners both individually and as part of the team overall.